Tom and Margaret Martin

       More Letters From Paradise
        Tom and Margaret Martin
Tom and Margaret Margaret you are dead.
      But you already know this.
I am reminded of this fact each time
     I pass the weed-grown corner
    where your store used to stand.
      I recall hearing that when
           Margaret died
     You sat with her body for
    three days in the back room.
    And nobody would have known
except that teenager (what's his name?)
      wanted to buy something
  and you told him you were closed
     because your wife was dead.
     The boy ran off in a panic      
       and called the police.
  Soon after I learned that you were      
        declared unbalanced.
   You died in the State Hospital.
Tom, I remember that you got shot
in the knee in Archangel, Russia
      during World War I.
  Margaret was a British Wren,
 and you brought her to America.
    Your building stood empty
        for a few months.
Some kids broke most of the windows.
After that, the store was knocked down.
All that remains to mark the spot
is the faded, peeling Texaco sign.
   In the summer some people
 sell vegetables on the corner.
But I wonder, how many remember
      Tom and Margaret?  

          Aloha
          Grant